BRANGWYN’S BIG PRINTS BOOK
All the prints are catalogued in the following book: Libby Horner, Brangwyn’s Big Prints Book, Cambridge, 2023
The tome is composed of five books, Etchings, Lithographs, Wood Engravings, Bookplates & Collaborations and General Notes, presented in a slip case. 657 pages, 1234 catalogue entries, 1632 illustrations. Each book contains an introduction to Brangwyn’s use of the medium, followed by a catalogue of all his works. A list of contents, acknowledgements, abbreviations and explanatory notes, a tabulated biography, an extensive bibliography and indices of museums, exhibitions, titles and numbers can be found in the General Notes book.
Price £125 + £8.00 P&P UK. To purchase a copy go to www.paypal.me/LibbyHorner, recording your name and postal address or email me for alternative ways of paying.
Brangwyn was a fervent believer that art should be accessible to all, regardless of wealth or station, which probably explains his interest in autographic processes. A mass produced printed work was obviously considerably more affordable for the general population than a one-off oil painting. Although Brangwyn cut corners – he would rework an image in a variety of media and frequently recycled areas of etching plates to produce another print run – he appeared to give his printed work as much attention to detail and composition as his original oils or works on paper.
Click on the links for larger images and more information.
ETCHING
Temple Lodge studio, London. Brangwyn wiping an etching plate, his American assistant Edward D Trumbull on the press in background, c1911.
Between 1900 and 1948 Brangwyn produced over 500 etchings. Brangwyn experimented with printing processes. His plates were often ‘deeply bitten’ and printed with a combination of raw sienna, burnt sienna and French black on buff coloured sheen paper, the precise inking and wiping of the plate playing an important part in the final production, producing dramatic chiaroscuro. Many of the plates were large, some over 70cm (27.6in) square, and for that reason Brangwyn used soft zinc rather than the more expensive, but traditional, copper. The etchings were produced in several states, the first state sometimes having only one impression, other editions were as many as 150. Brangwyn employed the expertise of both Frederick Goulding and Welch to print his etchings.
The etchings depict landscapes, townscapes, Brangwyn’s favourite bridges, windmills and city gates, industrial locations and contemporary outcasts of society – beggars and disabled people – although there are few portraits. What is immediately apparent in the etchings is the incredible draughtsmanship and technical facility especially when dealing with engineering, architectural and marine subjects.
WOODCUTS
Brangwyn with boxwood block, c1907
Brangwyn produced about 340 wood engravings and woodcuts, many of them intended as book illustrations and head and tail pieces. He cut the woodblocks himself.
LITHOGRAPHS
Ditchling studio. Brangwyn working on a lithographic stone.
Brangwyn was one of a small but dedicated number of artists who prepared his own stones, drew lithographs directly on the stone rather than using transfer paper, and could print his own proofs. Most of Brangwyn’s lithographs, however, were printed by T R Way and the Gouldings in Britain and probably by Clot in France, whilst The Avenue Press printed the majority of his war and commercial posters.
Brangwyn produced about 160 lithographs (excluding his war work and Stations of the Cross). Many of these were for special editions of magazines (Neolith, The Studio) and books (Verhaeren’s, Les Campagnes Hallucinees). Although the works generally depicted Brangwyn’s muscular men in fields and factories, some early lithographs are unusually soft and gentle in character, with Art Nouveau figures.
Brangwyn had very definite ideas on art in advertising. The artist was one of a rare breed of Academicians who were prepared to work for commercial enterprises, and produced over 40 posters between 1899 and 1936. The posters are quite stylised, emotive, bold in outline and frequently combine image and lettering.
See also Man sawing (P1033)
BOOKPLATES
Brangwyn designed over 130 bookplates for friends and colleagues both in the UK and abroad (notably France and Italy), the light-hearted designs being a pun on the owner’s name or apparently relating to the owner’s occupation or interest, although the meaning of some remains obscure. The ex-libris were produced in a variety of media – as etchings, woodcuts and lithographs. Many, but not all, were reproduced in Bookplates by Frank Brangwyn RA, compiled by E Hesketh Hubbard and Eden Phillpotts in 1920.
When one considers the volume and large scale of work Brangwyn was commissioned to produce, it is delightful to discover that he was prepared to spend time working on small individual tokens for associates. The craft probably appealed to Brangwyn because bookplates were considered at the time to be a product of democracy and afforded evidence of the spread of education.
